It’s hard to escape the fact that the women in each of them are being sexualized. “A bikini or nothing at all?” I’m not sure what the difference is in the Sports Illustrated cover. And that Burberry coat isn’t going to keep the model warm if she plans on wearing it like that. As for the American Apparel ad — really? We’ve been over this. What does that image have to do with selling clothes?

Nothing, of course. And the swimsuit cover isn’t really about the swimsuit, and the Burberry ad isn’t really about the coat. They’re about the sexualization and objectification of the female body. These women are being treated as objects for public consumption.

Are the images porn, though? Well, maybe not exactly, but they certainly seem to be treading a very fine line.

But that raises an interesting question: Just how fine is that line, and where exactly is it?

The difference between objectification and just plain living.

Because if porn is simply the objectification and sexualization of women’s bodies, we have a problem. Women’s bodies are being used as objects — sexual and otherwise — all the time. They are used as objects to sell clothes, food, and cosmetics; as objects to be dressed, decorated and admired; and as objects to be gawked at, made fun of, and scrutinized.

Porn mirrors back to us — in a particularly graphic way — what goes on around us all the time.

Maybe that’s why we have a difficult time finding that line. Porn doesn’t stand out as being all that different from what we encounter every day. Porn is simply at one end of a long spectrum of female objectification, with one type of objectification blending seamlessly into the next.

Porn, then, is symbolic of a much larger cultural issue. And if porn is going to get healthier — if it’s going to become about sexuality rather than sexualization — then society has to get healthier.

We have to stop objectifying women everywhere, not just in porn movies. We have to change the spectrum, so that the society porn reflects is one of respect and individuality. Making porn healthier is about making society healthier.

Once that happens, not only sex, but life, gets better for everyone.

Tara is a writer and educator who has a long-standing interest in sociology and women’s issues. She is particularly interested in the way the wedding industry defines and reinforces a single, narrow definition of womanhood.

]]>http://www.about-face.org/advertising-and-porn-why-cant-we-tell-the-difference/feed/0“Era of the Big Booty”? No thanks.http://www.about-face.org/era-of-the-big-booty-no-thanks/
http://www.about-face.org/era-of-the-big-booty-no-thanks/#commentsWed, 18 Feb 2015 16:00:18 +0000http://www.about-face.org/?p=17845I’m not a prude, and I don’t like to judge other women’s personal choices. But I do care an awful lot about how women are portrayed (and portray themselves!) in the media. We’re now averaging 13.6 hours of media consumption per person per day, which means the stories we see played out in the media can’t not impact our self-image. And today’s stories are all about butts.

Celebrities are embracing (and creating) the “Era of the Big Booty.”

I’ve been keeping a list (Yessiree, I have!) since the summer, and I now present to you some of the most recent visible examples of celebrities getting us to focus on their butts.

Add to this, of course, Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video and the JLo/Iggy Azalea offering simply called “Booty” (in which JLo is revered as the mother of this butt-shaking movement — which is nice, I guess, since credit is due… but it’s also just yucky).

To break it down, pop culture messaging right now is teaching girls that the pathway to recognition, personal empowerment, and success is by flaunting it if you’ve got it.Belfies (butt selfies, of course) are hot, and celebrities are leading the way when it comes to showing off their booties and encouraging everyone else to do the same in the name of female autonomy and choice. And we all seem to be alright with that because the booty is hot! It’s what’s in! It’s exciting! In fact as Vogue magazine proclaimed, we’re “officially in the Era of the Big Booty.”

In my opinion, however, it’s kind of a weird time for everything to be all about that bass. In recent times, the court of public opinion has totally freaked out when girls internalize oversexualized media messages. Take, oh, just about everything Miley Cyrus did last year, for example. Also, girls are constantly told to dress/act sexy, yet they’re penalized when they do so (as demonstrated by recent brouhaha over girls’ dress codes).

It’s tricky.

Consumers are overloaded with images like this.

I don’t mean to wring my hands like an old granny here, chastising womenfolk for being sexy. And my unease concerning the “Era of the Big Booty” isn’t just sour grapes (I’m talking to you, Jonathan Cheban re: your “You Want to Be Her!” comments to Naya Rivera after Kim Kardashian’s #BreakTheInternet photos for PAPER magazine).

But I’m confused. Here we are, a decade after the Girl Power Movement and Third Wave feminism, which in part promoted the idea that girls shouldn’t need to rely on appearance for success or recognition. And yet, current pop culture role models — because that’s what they are, even if they deny it— keep forcing the focus right back on their appearance by making it all about showing off a body part.

Some argue that the fact that female celebrities are choosing to do this — and cashing in on it big time — makes it alright.

Um, I guess. That’s certainly a better scenario than the famous ladies being forced to do this and someone else (a male someone else) laughing all the way to the bank. But ultimately, I wish women in the spotlight would use their power to create new mainstream portrayals of powerful women.

Because wouldn’t that be way more exciting than another belfie?

Audrey D. Brashich is the author of “All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty,” a media literacy and body image guide for teen girls. She writes regularly about trending pop culture issues for national newspapers, websites and magazines including The Washington Post, SmartMom and XoJane.com.

On the other hand, the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue is really just old-hat sexism. Objectification of women should never be acceptable. How can we expect men, especially young men, to view women as equals when they’re bombarded with images of women as something to be ogled? SI’s Swimsuit issue, along with many other media images of the “ideal female body,” imprints on a young man and gives him a distorted lens through which to view women: as bodies, not as people.

24-year-old model Hannah Davis pulling off her bikini bottoms while standing in front of a fence. On the cover of a sports magazine, natch.

(Hint: It had nothing to do with wanting to look like the model.)

It was because I have no idea how I’m going to explain the image to my two sons (ages six and eight), who love sports and are about to be SI’s target market.

When the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue (SISI) cover image hit the internet last Thursday, I happened to be at my kids’ soccer practice. I was watching them run, jump, and practice with gusto (yes, gusto) as they were being coached by a female athlete. A twenty-something who played at a national level during college — and who now teaches kids to go all out for the game.

She was not in a bikini. Nor did she make like she was about to take her skivvies off.

So it hit me there on the sidelines that no matter what I try to teach my own kids about respecting women, and no matter how many inspiring female athletes they meet, my boys — all of our boys — are still going to get the message from powerful mass culture outlets that sports are theirs to dominate. As for girls’ role in athletics, that’s easy: To be hot and looked at.

How is it that we are we still fighting this battle?

We’ve had three waves of feminism; we live in a post-Title IX and post-Girl Power culture where we’re consciously raising girls to participate, excel, and Lean In. And yet this image makes me think of the tweet Rashida Jones (love her!) caught hell for last fall: “This week’s celeb news takeaway: She who comes closest to showing the actual inside of her vagina is most popular. #stopactinglikewhores”

My kids! Playing soccer!

I don’t expect Sports Illustrated to catalyze the revolution when it comes to media portrayals of girls and women — and I’m trying really hard not to get all judgmental about the women who choose to be featured in the SISI. In fact, in an ironic way, their choices actually show how smart they are. They’ve clued into which women in our culture are celebrated and financially rewarded, and they’re gettin’ some rewards for themselves.

But I wish — oh, how I wish — that we could educate ourselves out of being a market for these messages and images. That we could raise a generation of girls who won’t be seduced by the “glamour” and reward of trading on their appearance. And that we could raise an army of boys who don’t expect girls to look/act this way, and who don’t feel entitled to consume such images of women in just about all media that targets them.

With any luck (and a lot of work), it will be my boys who help lead the way.

Audrey D. Brashich is the author of All Made Up: A Girl’s Guide to Seeing Through Celebrity Hype and Celebrating Real Beauty, a media literacy and body image guide for teen girls. She writes regularly about trending pop culture issues for national newspapers, websites and magazines including The Washington Post, SmartMom and XoJane.com. Follow her on Twitter @AudreyBrashich.

]]>http://www.about-face.org/why-the-sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-cover-brought-me-to-tears/feed/6“Fit is the new thin”: Is Instagram just another channel for eating disorders?http://www.about-face.org/fit-is-the-new-thin-is-instagram-just-another-channel-for-eating-disorders/
http://www.about-face.org/fit-is-the-new-thin-is-instagram-just-another-channel-for-eating-disorders/#commentsThu, 05 Feb 2015 16:00:41 +0000http://www.about-face.org/?p=17919

Positive or negative?

Instagram is one of the most popular forms of social media today, not just because of the awesome pictures, but because of the “community” — it’s sort of like YouTube, except you create your own world online in the form of pictures.

Instagram gets a good rep partially because it seems like a great form of spreading healthy and supportive messages. This is because of the “health and fitness” trend that seems to have taken over Instagram — the community called “FitFam.” While many of these pages seem supportive of healthy behaviors and lifestyles, you have to ask yourself: Does scrolling through thousands of images daily of “fitness enthusiasts,” “healthy eaters,” “raw-vegans,” and fitness models actually inspire health, or does it just perpetuate eating disorders and body image issues?

Hashtags such as #FitnessFriday and #TransformationTuesday appear like clockwork on Instagram feeds, causing speculation over whether Instagram is just another platform social media uses to make people feel bad about themselves, to make people want to change themselves, and to sell a myriad of products in the name of the “healthy lifestyle.”

Instagram images may, in fact, inspire many people to live healthier lives, to exercise, and to eat fruit. However, many of the images have the opposite effect. Even though “fit is the new thin” is a healthier slogan than anything having to do with thigh gaps, it still shows girls unattainable examples of perfect leanness and muscular physiques (as well as plenty of legs sans cellulite).

Does this really inspire people to be more healthy?

I love Instagram. I think it’s great for looking at beautiful fall pictures, adorable puppies, and other mood boosters. It is also a great way to connect with people, see the world, and peer into the lives of others. However, these “health” communities and “fitness inspirations” create an entirely different focus. If we want to stop the harmful messages of media and the creation of more anxious and self-deprecating women, we have to start somewhere where we have control — for example, Instagram.

My advice? Don’t post messages or images that may make others feel bad. Even posts with good intentions can sometimes be hurtful to others. While inspiration is great, a community promoting big butts and tips on how to “achieve” them just adds to the ever-present sphere of messages saying, “You are not good enough, and here’s how to change if you want to be ‘perfect.’”

To change this, we have to step up, stop supporting these media techniques, and really focus on finding the happiness within and around us.

Kinga Vasicsek was born in Hungary and has lived in the Bay Area since age 10. She is a currently in college studying Political Science and Communications. She is an actress and also spends much of her free time writing.

]]>http://www.about-face.org/fit-is-the-new-thin-is-instagram-just-another-channel-for-eating-disorders/feed/1Great Super Bowl for women and girls, right? Wrong.http://www.about-face.org/great-super-bowl-for-women-and-girls-right-wrong/
http://www.about-face.org/great-super-bowl-for-women-and-girls-right-wrong/#commentsMon, 02 Feb 2015 18:06:34 +0000http://www.about-face.org/?p=17898After so many years of incredibly degrading, sexist, and sexualized ads, the ways women were represented in this year’s Super Bowl commercials, overall, were much less problematic and insulting. It sure seems like advertisers have been listening to what gender equity activists have been saying for many years.

So this is great. Sexism in the Super Bowl is over! We’re there, right?

Well, wrong.

The not-sexist, BMW “Explain the Internet” ad was actually creative.

Viewers certainly did see fewer objectified women, some quite depressing ads (Nationwide Insurance, “I died in an accident.”), awareness-raising PSAs (NFL’s violence against women), and even a healthy dose of girl power (Always, “Like a girl.”), and more exhortations to be an involved father (Dove). In fact, focus group researcher Frank Luntz says that the “dad” commercials do much better among female viewers than male ones, as women are looking for men who are “good dads”. An ad doesn’t need to show women to be targeted to women.

But despite what may be one of the least-sexist ad collections I’ve seen in years of watching the Super Bowl in order to critique the ads, gender stereotypes are very much alive. Let’s not forget that any image of sexualization is bad for girls. According to a report from the American Psychological Association, feeling sexualized and objectified inhibits a girl’s cognitive functioning and self-esteem. Girls still saw the T-Mobile ad featuring Kim Kardashian’s breasts and “outfits”. And there were a few others.

Three ads this year reminded me of the kind of sexism women have put up with for decades: A Carl’s Jr. ad where a seemingly naked woman is partially hidden by melons and other fruit; a Victoria’s Secret ad showing highly sexualized models posing to the song “I’m in the Mood for Love” (that is, “I’m available for you to have sex with.”); and an ad for a video game featuring a woman in some very ineffective armor that displayed her voluptuous cleavage coming out of the top of it. In a strange twist, the tone of these three ads stood out as out-of-touch and outdated.

But they still affect girls in the same ways, and perhaps we all noticed them even more because they were different than the rest.

It didn’t stop with the ads. During the halftime show, which was quite tame compared to previous years, Katy Perry’s dancers strutted around suggestively in a Lolita-style dance to “Teenage Dream”, a pop ditty about how girls turn boys on (“I’ll melt your popsicle.”).

Disappointingly, it says a lot about how bought into sexism we are that the talk around the Internet and Twitter during and after the Super Bowl is that women fared “pretty well”. There were only 7 to 10 sexualized women! And that “Like a Girl” ad was so powerful! We should celebrate!

It’s important to keep our eyes on the truth: The Super Bowl itself still oozes gender stereotype as an American tradition. Seemingly inherent in the Super Bowl is the hypermasculinity of the violent game, the tiny female cheerleaders bouncing around (which television viewers rarely see because they dance during commercial breaks), the extremely high level of competition. This spectacle is rooted in subtle and blatant gender stereotype.

So regardless of how little overtly sexist advertising there is, it’s still there, and it’s unacceptable. There’s something about the juxtaposition of hypermasculinity and the cleavage of the woman in the Victoria’s Secret ad that can be extremely unsettling for a woman who needs to wake up Monday morning, go to work, and wonder how her male colleagues see her as they banter about the game at the water cooler. Or a girl who needs to go to school and wonder how her male classmates see her.

It’s not time to be resigned and think that everything’s getting better, and we’ve made it to the post-feminist finish line. We haven’t. So this year, amplify your voice by praising all the “good” ads via tweeting companies, writing their CEOs, and contacting NBC, the network that broadcasts the event. But let’s also be sure to keep the drumbeat of complaint going companies that objectify women until they realize they’ll make even more money if they quit insulting half the population.

Jennifer Berger, Executive Director of About-Face, is an expert in how media shapes our sense of self.

In some ways, I look like the “before” girl in romantic comedies. You know, the one with the frizzy hair and the chunky glasses? If only I would straighten my hair and take off my glasses, then I, too, could be beautiful! At least, so says romantic comedy logic.

As Rachel Paige at Hello Giggles points out, the glasses-wearing “before” girl is irritatingly common — as is, I would like to add, the removal of her glasses without the substitution of contacts. Nothing’s hotter than a girl who can’t see!

I’ve always resented the “glasses-wearing-ugly-duckling” trope because it tells me that I need to be “fixed” in order to be attractive — and I know I’m not broken. Is my vision awful? For sure. Does that mean wearing glasses should hold me back? No way!

The Bellejar mentions that “ugly duckling” themes are also dangerously common in young adult literature. Young female protagonists’ appearances are frequently “fixed” so that they can be pretty in addition to being smart, capable, and other worthy things.

Hermione tames her hair, Katniss gets a makeover, etc. The exception, according to the Bellejar, is Tris from Divergent. Tris is markedly “not beautiful,” and it does not matter to her or to the story’s plot. Even Tris’s love interest values her actions and character much more than he values her appearance.

A novel with a female protagonist who never becomes conventionally attractive — and who, not to mention, has a love interest who accepts her unconventional looks — is a radical departure from the media’s “ugly duckling” archetype.

This, according to the Bellejar, illustrates the problem with arguing that all women and girls need to feel beautiful:

When we promote this idea that all women are beautiful, what we are really doing is emphasizing that it is important for women to be physically attractive. We are telling girls that, as females, the way that they look is a huge part of who they are — that we expect prettiness from them, and that we expect them to want it.

Tris demonstrates that a girl can be “un-pretty” throughout her whole story, and she can still be happy, successful, and loved.

Skepchick’s Elyse Anders takes this line of thought even further, arguing, “It’s okay to not love my body. It’s okay to not even like my body. They’re my feelings and it’s my body and I will use those feelings to feel however I want to about my body.”

Whatever this means to you, it’s okay.

What is not okay, Anders says, is being told what type of relationship she should have with her body, whether she is told to love it as is or change it to conform to other people’s beauty standards.

Anders equates telling women that they should feel beautiful no matter how they look to telling women that they should meet socially determined beauty standards: Both are ways of regulating women’s relationships with their appearances, and both place more value on appearance than on personality.

On one hand, it’s an interesting argument. I certainly agree that girls and women should not be told how to feel, and that we don’t need more ways of saying that women’s appearances are more important than their personalities and accomplishments.

On the other hand, I know that it can be hard when you don’t like your physical self, and it can help to hear that it’s okay to love your body regardless of how it looks.

All in all, I believe that loving your appearance should not be a prerequisite for happiness. Thinking, “Whatever,” when you see yourself in the mirror — and being happy with that — should be a viable option.

As for me, I suppose my mentality as a glasses-wearing lady is somewhere in between. It makes me happy to feel pretty in my glasses, and it makes me happy to like the way my face looks while I wear them.

But on the other hand, who cares? I have terrible vision, and my glasses help me do things. They let me ride my bike and bake cookies and type this blog post. My glasses let me be a complete person. I don’t have to like how I look when I wear them — I just have to like who I am.

Sasha Albert holds a Master’s degree in Gender and Sexuality from the University of Amsterdam, and participates in reproductive health and justice activism in the Boston area.

A physician speaking at a meeting of doctors interested in LGBTQ health issues made the above remark and then moved on, as though it were a fact so obvious he needn’t comment on it further.

Wow. I wish someone had told me that growing up. Imagine all the time I would have saved, not worrying about how I looked in a bikini or if my stomach showed when I looked sideways at my reflection.

I find the physician’s comment ridiculous and thoughtless.

It seems I’m a bit behind the times, however. Lesbians’ supposed disinterest in society’s idea of beauty has been used as a reason for a variety of health issues in the lesbian community, most commonly obesity. It has been mentioned in media blogs as well as studied in the scientific community.

I wish I had her superpowers!

But it feels wrong. No one is immune to the media culture. Like everyone else, lesbians grow up with impossible airbrushed/Photoshopped standards of beauty created by the media, and these images work themselves deep into our minds long before we know we shouldn’t buy into them.

To be female — any kind of female — is to grow up in a media culture determined to identify your values for you, and to learn to judge yourself by their standards. And that’s hard to let go, no matter who you are or how hard you try.

So what? What does it matter if people believe that, freed from the shackles of beauty standards, lesbians are free to love themselves and others just as they are? After all, that’s a beautiful idea, isn’t it?

It is. And that is my wish for everyone — any gender, any sexual orientation. But stereotypes, even “positive” ones, are harmful. They keep us from seeing the truth about people. In this case, believing obesity is caused by a rejection of the media’s skinny-is-beautiful message may make us overlook other possible causes, such as depression or fear, in women and girls who are our friends and family. Accepting the easy answer means denying our ability to help people we care about.

Media portrayals of girls and women affect everyone — no matter their gender or identity. Sadly, the superpower of media immunity doesn’t exist, but that doesn’t mean it’s not worth working toward.

What do you do to cultivate your superpower against media? Is it possible to be completely free of their influence?

Tara is a writer and educator who has a long-standing interest in sociology and women’s issues. She is particularly interested in the way the wedding industry defines and reinforces a single, narrow definition of womanhood.

At the close of 2013, actress Rashida Jones wrote an article for Glamour magazine entitled “Why is Everyone Getting Naked? Rashida Jones on the Pornification of Everything”, in which she discusses pop stars and the trend of exposing as much of their bodies as possible. She talks about how, while she grew up with a healthy balance of sexuality in pop star performances, they now all interpret “sexy” as showing lots of skin, which she finds homogenous and rather boring. She also makes an important distinction between true expressions of female sexuality and women selling sex. In her closing remarks, she asks men to show up and join the conversation on the larger implications of female sexuality on pop culture. So here I am offering my thoughts.

Each man and woman’s sexuality is different and each varies in the way they express it. For example, as Rashida Jones points out in her article, while some women love stripper moves and a pole, others like getting their feet rubbed. In the same way, for every guy who enjoys stripper moves, there are also guys who like rubbing their girlfriend’s feet. Unfortunately, we often fall prey to the limited belief that the extremely sexualized videos, outfits, and dance moves executed by female pop stars is what all men find irresistibly sexy. This, in turn, leads to the narrow belief that this is the only thing men find sexy. I believe it is important for men to voice their opinions, and my own opinion is that those videos and dance moves play to what media culture has decided men want, and moreover what they should want, but not necessarily what men actually do enjoy and wish to see and find sexy.

This may be partly wishful thinking on my part, but the extremely sexualized pop culture and the limited forms used to express female sexuality seem most often to involve dehumanizing and disrespecting, or degrading the women involved. Examples of this dehumanizing display of sex ranges from the naked dancing girls in Blurred Lines, to, more recently, Nicki Minaj’s “Anaconda” video.

Do these expressions of female sexuality leave the viewer feeling like they just witnessed a strong empowered feminine expression of sexuality providing a healthy view of women? I can’t personally say they do. In fact, I believe it has the opposite effect because by combining feelings of sexual excitement with unsettling imagery of dehumanized and debased women, boys are taught to associate sexual excitement with female degradation.

Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in “To Have and Have Not”

Like Rashida Jones, I also miss seeing more variety in how sexiness is displayed. Where have the sultry expressions of “sexy” gone? Give me Grace Kelly in “Rear Window” or Ava Gardner in “The Killers” or, my personal favorite, Lauren Bacall in “To Have And Have Not” with Humphrey Bogart.

Unfortunately, our pop culture has limited female expressions of sexiness to only those overtly sexual, such as revealing outfits or twerking dance moves. As a heterosexual male, I am told by pop culture that if I don’t find it incredibly sexy watching a Miley Cyrus twerk on stage, then there is something wrong with me.

But I, and many other men, findthat a woman’s empowered choice in how she portrays her sexuality is as much a factor in what makes the action sexy as is the way she chooses to portray it. For example, when a female pop star is twerking or wearing a barely-there outfit, it is difficult to view it as an empowered expression of her sexuality versus a calculated decision by outsiders like managers or record executives seeking to boost recognition and record sales through her overtly sexualized display.

As both men and women contribute to this conversation, we can work together to limit the impact media culture has on adolescent girls and boys, as well as ourselves, by finding truths of how we feel about beauty, attractiveness, and expressions of sexuality unhindered by media culture limitations.

Jonathan Edwards is an attorney currently working mainly with indigent prisoners on civil rights issues. After completing his Juris Doctor in 2009 at the University of the Pacific, McGeorge School of Law, he relocated to the bay area and joined the About-Face Associate Board as part of his dedication to social justice.

Imposter: This ad was featured on the back of Scott Snyder’s Batman #13. Thanks for the warning!

There are a million ways to be cruel and ignorant in geekdom, and Halloween is a riot for the exclusive boys’ club nerd culture has built.

Cosplay, shorthand for “costume play,” is defined by Wikipedia as a “performance art in which cosplayers wear costume and fashion accessories to represent a specific character or idea that is identified with a unique name.” Think Halloween on the extreme – cosplayers turn the fantasy world into reality.

And who other to rule the fantasy kingdom than the sprawling plains of nerd-dom? There are Batmen and Spidermen, lords and kings of fantastical lands, and antiheroes brought to life by the hundred. The possibilities are endless. And after hours spent slaving over the minutia of your perfect cosplay, you hear from the corner of the comic book store Halloween party: “attention-grabbing slut!”

Let’s visit the most terrorizing of stereotypes: the “horrifying” fake geek girl. Beware! These alleged women knock on your door, trick-or-treating, or arrive at geek events. And while they may be hot, they lack the “geek-cred” to be a “true fan.”

But there is no such thing as a fake geek girl. There are simply are females who like or enjoy something society automatically labels as part of “nerd culture.”

Alienating women in geekdom is nothing new, from both casual fans and even professionals in the industry. Comic writer Tony Harris, known for his work on Starman, Iron Man, and Ex Machina, posted on Facebook: “Hey! Quasi-Pretty-NOT-Hot-Girl, you are more pathetic than the REAL Nerds, who YOU secretly think are REALLY pathetic. But we are onto you.”

Elitists will always make joining a clique, a club, or a subculture competitive and menacing. And the fact that geek culture is, with some exceptions, largely a boy’s club doesn’t make it easier for women to enthusiastically enjoy something different from the mainstream any easier. Without precisely reciting every fact, any female is labeled a poser.

Not to mention the way the subculture designs and glorifies women in skimpy costumes as half-baked characters. Female fans who create replicas then become marked as attention-seeking sluts.

The startling reality is that Halloween isn’t just the one time of year women are shamed in geekdom. Around the world, females are too intimidated by the nerd-cred-shaming male nerd population of geekdom to feel comfortable expressing the slightest interest in things that generically fall under the “nerd” category.

It’s expected of women to be subservient to the males in nerd society. If they dare submerge themselves into the universe, only then can they redeem themselves by becoming that archetypal, subservient-to-her-male-super-colleagues character. And even then, she is still not given the basic respect of being recognized as a member of the fandom.

But the fandom isn’t the only realm this virus affects. As geekdom floods into the mainstream, as superhero movies maintain number one in the box office for weeks, this “boys only” territory spreads everywhere. As young girls grow up watching Princess Leia being raped by Jabba the Hutt and dismiss it as a bump in the plot line, the anti-feminist side of geekery will not only cause some serious damage, but set a standard of shaming women for the years to come.

When you boil it down, women’s worth in geekery is not their contributions to the subculture or even their extensive passion. The community of lady nerds is growing. And ladies? Forget about the haters. Let your geek flag fly proudly this Halloween.

Kaity Gee is a high school junior at The Harker School in San Jose. She is currently multimedia editor of her school paper, The Winged Post. Kaity has won multiple awards for her journalistic works, including CSPA’s Gold Circle award for Broadcast and Graphic Design; Honorable Mention and 2nd place nationally, respectively. She has also been awarded 2nd place in the National Federation of Press Women’s prestigious Feature Category for her piece on eating disorders.